Conference Agenda

This proposal is part of an Educational Doctorate (EdD) that explores the roll of the small rural school in it’s community. Corbett (2015) states that rural schools are embedded in communities and potentially integrated within the community and often the heart of rural communities. The particular focus of the study is to better understand the impact of national education policy in Scotland on these schools. How do these schools interact with national policy and how does national policy reflect the needs of these schools? Barret et al (2015) suggests that rural schools remain under-examined relative to their suburban and urban counterparts in relations to such outcomes.

Within an age of uncertainty education policy and practice within rural schools is complex. The study investigates the views and practices of national policy makers, local authority policy makers, headteachers of small rural schools and fieldwork from a very small remote rural school. Reid (2017) argues that education policymakers and practitioners must understand their place in a much larger and interconnected manner in relation to social, economic, and environmental influences.

I came to this research as an educationalist with more than 40 years’ experience in the field and having been in the unique position of having lived experience of all of roles being researched. I was aware that whilst this brought extensive knowledge there were also restrictions in relation to the prejudices this could bring as no researcher is neutral (Janesick, 2000; Lincoln &Denzin 2000). I wanted to use my experience, memories, and skills in the rural education field to bring greater understanding and hope for the future to the role of small rural schools. The intersections of the place, my personal views and career are relevant in the field (Gupta and Ferguson 1997).

My supervisor was instrumental in guiding me to the understanding that my unique position brought a new lens to explore rural education. I was introduced to auto ethnography as a research methodology. By turning the mirror on myself I became aware of the uniqueness I brought as a researcher. Portraiture a form of ethnographic research draws on data to paint a rich picture in words of community and/or place (Lawrence – Lightfoot and Davis 1997)

The research has incorporated ethnography, auto ethnography and portraiture, as an approach to narrative inquiry. I propose to share the complexity of utilising these tools to build research which captures a wealth of knowledge and experience creating memories from which others can benefit and bring hope for the future. We live through times of uncertainty for rural schools but also times to create a vision for these rural schools as unique and valuable contributors to education.

The journey through EdD has led me to develop autoethnography, narrative inquiry and portraiture to capture rich data of rural school leadership of policy. My personal journey has impacted “on the research question, how the research was conceptualised, and the importance ascribed to research problems” (Bartholomaeus et al p58). Human actions can be explained if the researcher understands the culture in which the action takes place (Rosen1991).

In many European countries and regions, educational contexts and their institutions are confronted with spreading populism and “the growing strength of far-right parties” (Havlík & Mareš 2020: 257, Strijker et al. 2015). The effects of these political and social shifts on education have so far played merely a subordinate role in educational research. In particular, far-right orientations and discourses seem to rely on dynamics of place. In the past, especially rural regions have already been symptomatic and symbolic of the challenges of an integrative democratic educational system (Simon 2020, Corbett 2015). But “the rural is a notoriously difficult concept to define” (Roberts & Fuqua 2021: 2, Woods 2011) and embedded in tensions and contradictions. In this context, it is worth remembering how Adorno (1966/1970) addresses the problematic processes of education and democratization by speaking of a ‘cultural difference between urban and rural contexts’ (ibid., 3). Although he distances himself from arrogance towards the rural population, he identifies a ‘state of not quite having caught up with the culture’ (ibid.) and speaks of the ‘debarbarization of the rural as one of the most important educational goals’ (ibid.). In the current discourse, such categorizations are regarded as attributions that tend to create and stabilize dichotomies and differentiations (Berg & Üblacker 2020). Hence, recent studies focus on economic and cultural insecurity (Havlík & Mareš 2020: 259), which is believed to result from “population decline, ageing population, changing ethnic and cultural compositions, poor access to health care, economic hardship and decline” (Roberts & Fuqua 2021: 3) and fewer opportunities for participation in educational programs (Büdel & Kolleck 2023). It is often assumed that this causes sentiments of being left behind and erodes the trust in democratic societies and their promises of participation for all. Subsequently educational offers and programs try to adapt to the specific needs of rural areas in order to re-establish security and appreciation (Fargas-Malet & Bagley 2022). However, these efforts – as Adorno’s approach – often neglect that modern ideas of education and democratization are also part of hegemonic constructions (Laclau & Mouffe 2020), and that the stabilization and expansion of modernity and its institutions are therefore part of a special hegemonic order (Bender, Flügel-Martinsen & Vogt 2023). Nevertheless, this proposal does not intend to abandon these orientations and values of contemporary democratic societies. However, it presumes that educational research may not adequately reflect the political and social developments at the interfaces between the familiar and the foreign, particularly in relation to rural regions. This situation may even deepen conflicts and uncertainties when it comes to concrete pedagogical reactions.

The article presents research results from an ethnographic photo-documentary study which is part of the joint project PaKKT (Bender et al. 2019) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, 2019-2022) in Germany. The article thus pursues two objectives. The first methodological objective questions whether photo-ethnographic studies can be used to determine the specific field structure of rural regions. Is it possible – despite the non-existent spatial boundaries and the relationality of place – to work out the rules and influences of the field? The second objective is to analyze a specific social field, characterized by a strong and ongoing far-right and populist orientation: How does this social field relate to a culture of uncertainty and the pedagogical and educational approaches?

Overall, this paper offers a discussion of the connection between uncertainty and hegemonic conflicts, which is important for the understanding and development of educational research and pedagogical practices in rural regions in a changing Europe.

After a major revision of its age of consent law in 1990, Uganda’s defilement law became one of the most radical laws of this kind in the world. Defilement was redefined as sexual acts involving a person below 18 and was reclassified as a capital offence. Celebrated by women’s rights activists, the new law was supposed to prevent early marriage with a view to avoid unsafe sex practices that put girls at a greater risks of sexually transmitted diseases and pre-mature educational drop-out.

In this paper I explore how people in Bunyafa, a rural area in eastern Uganda, have reintrepeted 'defilement' after the 1990 revision, how they resolve defilement cases locally, and what that means for the educational careers of young men and women. I aim to demonstrate that people redefined ‘defilement’ locally by looking at a girls’ education rather than age and that defilement cases were handled pragmatically, through the payment of a fine. These dynamics have become something of the everyday in Bunyafa and are anticipated by some families who aim to earn a fine through marrying of daughers while in school.

The paper starts with an analysis of marriage changes in the area and local perceptions of the female body, which helps to understand why education has become such a focal point in local defilement cases, why these cases are handled pragmatically, through fines, and why this practice goes uncontested. Through case studies and survey data, the paper then provides an insight into local ways of handling defilement, demonstrating both how such cases unfold and how common they are. The final part of the paper is devoted to exploring some of the consequences of this for the education of young men and women, and patriarchal norms in society.

The insights build on, and contribute to, two theoretical perspectives. Firstly, building on a body of literature associated with the 'new literacy' studies of Brian Street (2001; 1993; 1995; 1984), I demonstrate how education is not only about the obtainment of particular skills, but is also a practice embedded in hegemonic power structures. The consequences of education are shaped, among other things, by the way in which educational activities are reworked in relation to these power stuctures (Street 1995) and how different actors, particularly powerful ones (men in eastern Uganda), manipulate the meaning of education to reinforce their position within these structures (Bledsoe and Robey 1993 Maurice Bloch 1993). I develop the concept of 'schoolwork' (cf. Jones 2022) to draw attention to these practices, reinpretations and manipulations, demonstrating how appreciating 'schoolwork' is crucial for understanding the consequences of education.

Secondly, my research furthers understanding of the relationship between education and early marriage. I demonstrate how local ways of defining and handling 'defilement' reinforces the idea that education and marriage are two alternatives, meaning that a girl out of school is almost immideately considered marriageable. This hampers the possible effect of what Lindstrom et al. (2009, 46) call the human capital and the social dislocation theories. Both these theories suggest that schooling may lead girls to take more time before they get married after they leave school, because of increased possibilities to earn money (human capital theory) and greater knowledge of, and confidence to seek, alternative pathways into adulthood (social dislocation theory).